Beat the bestsellers

MARK BILLINGHAM

THE STYLE AND TECHNIQUE OF…

Comic or crime-writer, he uses the same tricks, says Tony Rossiter

From stand-up comedian to bestselling crime writer. It’s an unusual progression, but Mark Billingham says that you have to use the same tricks: ‘When you do stand-up, you walk out on stage and you have a minute – sixty seconds – to hook them or they’ll start booing… ditto with a book. As a writer you again have a duty to deliver – a reader has not got time to say, I’ll give him fifty pages as it’s not very good yet, but I hope it’ll get better.’

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